Who Will Emerge as Bihar’s Single Largest Party?

Bihar Election Result 2025: The D‑Day in the high‑stakes Bihar Assembly Election 2025 is here as counting progresses across all 243 seats. According to the latest Election Commission trends at 10 AM, the contest has taken an intriguing turn over which party may emerge as the best performer.At 10 AM, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) is emerging as the single largest party, leading on 61 seats out of the 101 it contested. What makes this significant is that in the 2020 election, JD(U) had underperformed despite contesting more seats than its ally BJP—winning only 43 seats. Yet, the NDA alliance managed to form the government.JD(U)’s ally and 'big brother,' the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is not far behind, leading on 56 seats out of 101 contested. In

the very early trends, it was the BJP which was leading on maximum number of seats.Meanwhile, a disappointment is surrounding Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)—which had emerged as the single largest party in 2020 with 75 seats—is trailing this time, leading on just 33 seats out of 143 contested, as per ECI trends.On the Mahagathbandhan side, Congress, which contested 61 seats, is ahead in only 10 constituencies, far below expectations.Together, the NDA as per ECI numbers is leading on a total of 117 seats while the Mahagathbandhan alliance is ahead on 43 seats.On November 11, most exit polls have also predicted a victory for the BJP-JD(U)-led NDA while a setback to the RJD-Congress-led Mahagathbandhan. Some exit polls had also projected that JD(U) may emerge as the single largest party and the trends at this moment are running almost similar.Though these are only early trends, if they hold until the final results, incumbent CM Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) could emerge as the single largest party—a dramatic turnaround given its third‑place finish in 2020.That said, past elections have often witnessed dramatic reversals, with parties trailing in the morning surging ahead by the time final results are declared.

Bihar Saw Historic Voter Turnout Since 1951

In the 2025 election, the state broke all previous records and registered a historic overall turnout of 66.91%—the highest in seven decades since Bihar first voted in 1951.The turnout was also historic phase-wise, with 65.08% polling in Phase 1 across 121 constituencies and 68.76% in Phase 2 across 122 constituencies.Notably, female voter turnout was higher than male turnout in both phases and overall, with 71.6% among women compared to 62.8% among men.Polling for the 2025 Bihar Assembly election was held in two phases—121 constituencies voted in the first phase on November 6, while the remaining 122 went to polls in the second phase on November 11.